Question of the day

A day after he defied his security detail and ran into a burning house to save a woman’s life, Newark Mayor Cory Booker says he’s a good neighbor, not a superhero.

The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city was treated and released from the hospital after suffering smoke inhalation and second-degree burns on his hands Thursday night.

With a bandage around the thumb and first finger of his right hand, Booker said he felt terror, not bravery as he dashed through the flames with the woman over his shoulder. Though many are hailing him as a hero, he said he did what anyone would have done.

“There are people who do this every day. There are firefighters who do this every day. I am a neighbor and I did what any neighbor would do,” Booker said at a news briefing Friday.

The woman Booker helped save is in stable condition at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston with burns to her back and neck. The mayor described her as a close friend who has been his neighbor for six years.

* The Question: With snark heavily encouraged, what do you think our state’s most prominent leaders would do if their neighbor’s house was on fire?

Happy Friday.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Apr 13, 12 @ 11:32 am

Comments

Stand there and watch it burn!! Just like tehy did with the pension mess and the rest of Illinois’ finances for the last 20+ years.

Quinn would pace back and forth trying to make up his mind, weighing the pros and cons, rummaging through betsy for his note cards on fire safety and emergency management…needless to say it doesn’t go so well for the house.

Gov. Quinn (being generous with the prominent leader title today) and budget director Jerry Stermer agree not to put out any fires for a year if it promises to take care of Dan Rutherford’s election HQ.

Speaker Madigan slashes the fire trucks’ tires for parking in front of four of his yard signs.

President Cullerton gives the victims legislative scholarships.

Leader Radogno convinces her entire caucus to vote against borrowing the neighbor’s hose to put it out.

Very careful to not mention Mayor Daley by name specifically, Rahm would point out that past compromises and decisions resulted in the house being on fire, would yell at any media member who dared ask him to pick up a hose, and then would promise a new public-private initiative to fund sprinkler systems in every building that would prevent this sort of thing, and then would yell again at any media member who asked him for specifics.

The Governor would call for a Task Force on Emergency Rescue and set a midnight deadline for a proposal. The Governor’s office would issue a proposal at the first meeting but insist it’s not a proposal and would make all of the members give back their copies before leaving the meeting. They would pronounce it a “healthy discussion” and then extend the deadline. The Governor would then blame the General Assembly for failing to act but would attend the homeowner’s funeral, as long as he was a member of the military.

The Republican caucuses would call a news conference to blame the Democrats for the fire and then unveil their plans for putting the fire out, but never actually follow through on implementing those plans.

Look, when State employees other than those classified 14439 - “Facility Firefighter” or 42650 - “Stationary Fireman” go running into a burning building, attempting to save lives, that’s a violation of the AFSCME contract. It’s the sort of thing that just can’t be tolerated, and it *will* result in grievances and lawsuits. It’s an especially egregious violation when non-union employees or managers are engaging in that sort of behavior, as it tends to erode the bargaining power of the union, and results in lost union jobs.

It’s especially galling when elected officials are stooping that sort of thing, since it evinces a very troubling sort of disrespect for the hard-working men and women of state government, all across this state. Elected officials who run into burning buildings ought to face real challenges in upcoming election cycles, in both the primary and general, and can expect fundraising issues as well.

Corey Booker’s a trip. That dude could have gone anywhere, done anything and made a boatload of money. But he chose Newark and devoted himself to making it work. Now, there he is, running into burning buildings.

Madigan would send in Brown and tell the Owner, “Don’t Worry, you’ll be fine”…

Cullerton would draw a map making the neighbor “not a neighbor”….

Radogno would think the person is a neighbor, save them, then learn that Cullerton moved her out of the neighborhood ….

Tom Cross …

First Tom would issue a press release saying how he saved the neighbor from “a flood” … then Tom would save the neighbor after appointing a committee condeming “the flood” … Tom would then give the clothes off his back to the neighbor, consisting of a golf pullover, knickers and argyle socks. The nieghbor would turn down the golf shoes. Tom would describe the rescue as such …”My neighbor lives about a ‘9-iron away, a wedge with the wind, so I grabbed my pull cart after carefully removing my golf bag, and went into the house, and luckily found it wasn’t a flood …looked to see the was a left-to-right tilt to the driveway and rolled the cart up to the garage, leaving me a 3 foot walk to grab them. Scored that an ‘up and out’ on the card, and went to the next emergency.”

While a crowd of on-the-scene reporters did remotes discussing the tragedy with Cross and Quinn and wondering what would happen next, CapFax readers would learn that Madigan, Radogno, and Cullerton had met behind the house, organized a rescue and put out the fire with water borrowed from a nearby pool with the promise to replace the water as soon as there was some extra available.

Quinn would talk about saving everyone for so long, the house itself burns to ashes.

Simon would be present, but quietly, not really say or do too much that can attract attention during the save.

Lisa would save the neighbor, but Pat Brady will say saving the neighbor should have been done before the FBI did, which will leave everyone scratching their heads.

Jesse will tumble in the building and in a perfect triple back flip, with the signature twist, place each neighbor on their feet, gpraise the dogs for all offical “tumbler t-shirts”

jbt will send in rescued, rescue dogs!

Rutherford will tweet about it … then complain that everyone is upset he tweeted about the rescue, then Rutherford will tweet that the rescue was not at “taxpayers expense”, then tweet to everyone that you don’t have to follow his rescuing prowess, or his tweets.

Pongee would drive through the burning house, open all its doors, allowing the neighbors to pile in, speed backwards out the burning house, do a 180 degree turn, drive the neighbors to safety and open the doors to let them out, and look for “his Treasurer” so they can go home together.

In trying to rally the neighborhood to put the fire out, Gov. Quinn, in perfect Inspector Clouseau form, would inadvertently throw some TNT into the burning house, blowing it up as well as neighboring houses.

Cross would have a meeting with his gaggle of “empty suits” that would in the end decide to quietly support whatever Madigan wanted to do.

Madigan would already have the fire trucks lined up around the corner just waiting for the other caucuses to come to him for help. “Good way to pass a budget” Brown would say.

Cullerton will be under siege by his caucus so he will have to go along with whatever Madigan puts together in the end.

Radogno will have a plan put together…but she will not tell anyone what it is and will not show it to anyone. Then she will call Cross and secretly back whatever he has going on with Madigan (without the support of her tea party members of course.)

Quinn will swoop in and hug the victims on TV and then try to veto the budget. Then he will back out because the budget will have a non-severability clause attached to some COMED/CUB bill that increases wind farm construction in Illinois that Quinn wants super bad(as well as a bunch of other things that his staff doesn’t understand).

Meet as a group across the street, look very concerned, issue several statements about how close the homes next door are, ponder the next move, then be very relieved when the fire trucks show up, finally issue more statements on the dangers of fire and the bravery of the fire department.

While remaining at a safe distance Rahm, speaking in a soft sincere tone that reminds me uncomfortably of Blago, would express great concern for the family while doing little or nothing to actually solve the problem.

After the fire is out, Rahm would offer to help the family with repairs — NO BID CONTRACTS, BABY!

Anita Alvarez would say that she has no plans to look at any of Daley’s nephews for the crime even though one was captured on video with a torch and a can of gasoline walking up to the house saying “BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT”

Pat Quinn would just say those folks got a “haircut” and that they’ll be just fine in his opinion. Lawmakers from both parties would say the house was too costly for the state to save and we had to let it burn down to actually save the people who lived there. Burning the house down was really a concern to make sure those people could still live a decent life.

The Tribune will have an editorial bashing Madigan as the common denominator throughout the whole mess. He was Speaker when the house was built. He did nothing to prevent the fire, and the house burned down on his watch. Tom Cross and Christine Radogno don’t have the votes to stop fires, so they can’t be blamed. If only the voters of the 13th Ward could see that Madigan is essentially an arsonist and would burn down their homes too, maybe then they’d vote him out of office.

In other news, a Tribune poll found that 30% of midsized homes considered burning themselves down due to the inept leadership of Madigan and the state’s Democrats.

Well, we actually had something sort of similar happen in Chicago. I believe it was the summer of 1980 when there was a fire inside the Conrad Hilton and one soot covered lady came running down the stairs right into the comforting arms of Mayor Jane Byrne.